03/19/2014

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone (featuring yet another season of glorious merchandise). To try and capture the spirit of the holiday, I've taken a look and assembled the Flyers' all-Irish team. No player born in Ireland has ever laced them up for the Orange and Black (the last Irish-born players last played in the NHL in 1954, 13 years before the Flyers expanded -- unless you count Owen Nolan from Northern Ireland, who was never a Flyer), so with that said, here's the Flyers' all-Irish team:

C:Bobby ClarkeThe epitome of the Flyers franchise. Not much more needs to be said about the ultimate Philadelphia Flyer.

LW: Patrick SharpThough he's enjoying his best years in Chicago, Patrick Sharp still cut his teeth in the Orange and Black. Didn't his linemate trade him once? I'm sure it's all water under the bridge at this point.

RW: Tye McGinn'Roadhouse' has only played 26 games as a Flyer thus far, but the best has still yet to come. His prowess in a line brawl as a Phantom in February can provide some physicality to go along with Clarke.

D: Dan McGillisMcGillis was a solid defender on a blue line that also featured Eric Desjardins and Chris Therien throughout the late 1990s-early 2000s.

D: Brad McCrimmonYou've got to be a solid defender to be paired with Mark Howe, and 'The Beast' was.all that and more during his five seasons as a Flyer.

G: Ron HextallNo goaltender has played more games as a Flyer than Ron Hextall, and playing on the all-Irish Flyers team can pad that stat. Who knows, perhaps the assistant GM can influence the addition of more Irish players.

Overall, a fairly solid lineup for the Orange and Black/Green. A team that surely can play physical and with five Stanley Cups between them, a team that knows how to win.

Rob Riches is a contributor for Flyerdelphia, and his Flyers Five appears every Wednesday here and on Sports Source on Cavalier Radio 89.1 WYBF-FM. You can follow Rob on Twitter @Riches61.

03/18/2014

The Flyers opened up their four-game homestand with a huge overtime win against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night, extending their win streak to three games. Scott Hartnell scored twice for the Flyers, while Claude Giroux got the overtime goal with just 4.2 seconds left in OT. Chicago’s goals came from Andrew Shaw and Duncan Keith.

Patrick Kane had two assists in the Blackhawks 7-2 win over the Flyers on December 11. The Flyers host the Blackhawks on Tuesday night.(Photo Courtesy of NJ.com)

The Flyers second meeting with the defending Stanley Cup Champions has so much more meaning than the first. The first meeting against the Chicago Blackhawks, a 7-2 loss on Dec. 11, was simply about trying to stack up with one of the league's best for a long as possible. That lasted for about 25 minutes before Chicago completely took over.

The second meeting, tonight at Wells Fargo Center at 7:30 p.m., is about trying to beat that team. The third of 12 straight games against playoff teams is a team that is fully healthy and ready to go. It also marks the second time the Flyers and Blackhawks have played in Philadelphia since Game 6 of the 2010 Stanley Cup Final.

On this edition of the Flyers Faithful Podcast on Flyerdelphia.com, Steve Jacot and Hal Greenblatt discuss the Flyers' home and home weekend wins over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Andrew MacDonald and Andrej Meszaros trades, Wayne Simmonds and Sean Couturier's successes this season, and more.

Image courtesy of TheDicksonPress.comAs the NHL postseason nears, the playoffs for the Canadian Hockey League are set to start this weekend, as five Flyers' prospects are set to take part in the OHL, WHL, and QMJHL playoffs.

In the OHL, both Scott Laughton's team and Anthony Stolarz' team are set to have home-ice advantage in the quarterfinals. Laughton and the Oshawa Generals are the top seed in the Eastern Conference and will host the eighth-seeded Mississauga Steelheads. The Generals will host Game 1 on Friday night and host Game 2 on Sunday night.

Anthony Stolarz and the London Knights are the four seed in the Western Conference and they will take on the fifth-seeded Windsor Spitfires in the opening round of the postseason. Just like Oshawa, Stolarz and company will have home games on Friday and Sunday.

In the WHL, Tyrell Goulbourne and the Kelowna Rockets are the top seed in the Western Conference and will take on the eighth-seeded Tri-City Americans in the first round of the playoffs. The Rockets will host Game 1 and Game 2 on Saturday and Sunday. Goulbourne helped Kelowna win the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the WHL team that finishes the regular season with the best record. The Rockets were 57-11-4 during the regular season and finished with 118 points.

The team that finished with the second-best record during the WHL regular season was the Portland Winterhawks, who finished 54-13-5 for 113 points with the help of Taylor Leier. As the two-seed in the Western Conference, the Winterhawks will host the seventh-seeded Vancouver Giants in the first two games of their series on Saturday and Sunday.

In the QMJHL, Samuel Morin has home-ice advantage in the opening round just like the rest of the Flyers' prospects playing for junior teams, as Rimouski Oceanic will take on Chicoutimi Sagueneens in the first round of the playoffs. The first two games of the series will take place on Saturday and Sunday.

In the NCAA, two Flyers' prospects will face each other in the ECAC Hockey Semifinals when Union College takes on Cornell University this weekend. With a pair of assists in Union College's 3-0 win in Game 1 of their three-game series against Dartmouth, Shayne Gostisbehere then helped the Flying Dutchmen sweep the small series with a 4-2 decision over Dartmouth on Saturday. As for Cornell University, it wasn't as easy for Reece Willcox and company, as the school needed to pull out a 1-0 overtime win in Game 3 of the three-game series to advance to the Semifinals. Now, Gostisbehere and Willcox will face one another in the ECAC Hockey Semifinals on Friday at 4:00pm in Lake Placid, New York.

For Nick Luukko and the University of Vermont Catamounts, they won't be taking part in the semifinals, as they were eliminated by UMass Lowell in the Hockey East Quarterfinals. Luukko had an assist in the schools' 3-2 loss in Game 1 of the series and helped the University of Vermont win Game 2 of the series 3-2 in overtime. However, highly-touted prospect Christian Folin helped UMass Lowell win Game 3 by the score of 2-1 to send the Catamounts home.

Michael Parks and the University of North Dakota beat Colorado College 2-1 in the best-of-three NCHC Quarterfinals this past weekend. Parks scored a power-play goal in the second period of North Dakota's 4-2 win in Game 1, but the Colorado College Tigers responded with a 3-2 overtime win in Game 2 to force a third game. UND prevailed in Game 3 though, as they recorded the 4-3 victory to advance to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, where they will take on the Miami RedHawks Friday night.

Over in Russia, Flyers' prospect Jakub Kovar experienced a rough postseason, as his team, Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, was swept in the opening round of the KHL playoffs. Kovar was less than stellar in the sweep, as he had a save percentage of .893 and a GAA of 2.61. The seventh-seeded Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg was swept by Barys Astana, who has Nik Antropov, Cam Barker, Dustin Boyd, Brandon Bochenski, Nigel Dawes, Mike Lundin, and Konstantin Rudenko on their roster.

Aside from all the playoff action for many of the Orange and Black's prospects, some interesting news this week surrounds blue liner Robert Hagg. The Flyers' second-round pick in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft may be moving from MODO HK to Brynas. a club also in the SHL that could allow the defenseman to have an expanded role on the team, which would help him grow as a player. It isn't a done deal yet, but it's possible that Hagg could join the club that is closer to his hometown than MODO HK.